


declarations of love (and other humdrum confessions)

by peacetime_resistance



Category: Saving Hope
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacetime_resistance/pseuds/peacetime_resistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sydney should have seen all the signs from the start. </p><p>She should've seen it when she decided to turn around and look back at Maggie one last time, just before she left Hope Zion. Or when she chose to stuff the scrub cap from her first hook-up with Maggie into the side of her suitcase anyway, because she couldn't not just bring it with her to Israel. And if not then, then at the very least when Amira kissed her for the first time underneath the warm glow of a streetlight in Ashdod and instead of responding, Sydney found herself thinking about all the ways in which Amira didn't kiss like Maggie.</p><p>A fictional construction of how Sydney finds her way back to Maggie taking place after Sydney leaves for Israel in 4x12.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *I apologise in advance for any incorrect use of Jewish (Yiddish and Hebrew) terms! Again, I'm not Jewish so all my (limited) knowledge comes from research, tv and overhearing things said by my Jewish friends. 
> 
> **I also decided to name Sydney's girlfriend in Israel, Amira, but that should be pretty clear from the first few lines of the work.
> 
> As always, I appreciate any constructive feedback - so feel free to leave a comment below on whether you loved/hated it, anything I can improve. Comments are generally lovely to read so I can get a feel of what other people think of my story, but otherwise, leave some kudos if you liked it. More chapters to come.

Sydney should have seen all the signs from the start. She should've seen it when she decided to turn around and look back at Maggie one last time, just before she left Hope Zion. Or when she chose to stuff the scrub cap from her first hook-up with Maggie into the side of her suitcase anyway, because she couldn't  _not_ just bring it with her to Israel. And if not then, then at the very least when Amira kissed her for the first time underneath the warm glow of a streetlight in Ashdod and instead of responding, Sydney found herself thinking about all the ways in which Amira didn't kiss like Maggie. 

But she doesn't realise it at any of those times. No, she misses every single one of those signs. Instead, the realisation comes to her on a Wednesday morning three months after she's moved to Israel, as she's sitting with Amira at a little bohemian cafe in Florentin, just south of Tel Aviv.

"Ugh, and he sucks up to Saul, my supervisor, like crazy -"

They've been waiting on two orders of  _cafe hafuch_ and some _ragulach_ for what feels like forever and Amira has been passing the time by talking about some annoying guy from work who won't get off her case, when a little girl with deep, beautiful brown eyes decides to ungracefully plop herself right into Amira's lap stopping Amira in mid-rant.

"Oh - hello there, where did you come from?" Amira coos, taking a second to lift the girl up and to re-adjust her into a more comfortable position on her lap.

The little girl doesn't exactly verbalise an answer, but inadvertently gives it away when she sneaks a peek over to a middle-aged woman that looks just like her, who is sitting and conversing with a friend at another table.

"Mmm, is that your mother over there that you escaped from?"  

The girl lets out a soft, mischevious giggle and Amira and Sydney soon follow suit, laughing along with her.

"Well allow me to introduce myself, I'm Amira - oh, and this is my lovely girlfriend, Sydney. What's your name?"

The little girl forces Amira to hunch over towards her just so that she can whisper her name into Amira's ear.

"Zara, you have the same name as my mother - it's very beautiful, it means 'princess' doesn't it, Sydney?" Sydney hums her agreement and the little girl blushes, tucking her head into Amira's chest. Sydney smiles and Amira can't stop smiling back at Sydney. 

And maybe it's because everything just seems so perfectly domestic (or maybe it's because she hit her head too hard on the shower door the other day), but Sydney finds herself trying to imagine the portrait in front of her as the rest of her life, where maybe Amira isn't just her girlfriend, but is her wife and the little girl in front of her isn't a stranger, but their daughter. Sydney thinks about where they would live - maybe, in that beautiful house on sale in Neve Tzedek which she keeps passing by every morning or no, maybe they're back in Canada with a great little apartment in Toronto or Montreal that Sydney definitely pays too much for - Sydney doesn't really know or mind.

It's all meant to be a silly and completely meaningless hypothetical exercise for Sydney to indulge in just to pass the time, because Sydney is _most certainly_ not ready for marriage and kids - in that particular order. But what startles Sydney the most is that in every permutation which she runs through her head, Amira is never there next to her.

It's always -

 

Maggie.

It's Maggie that is by her side and laughing along with their daughter. Maggie that is thrusting their daughter up upon her shoulders. Maggie that is bringing a spoonful of food to their daughter's lips and frowning, when their daughter refuses to accept it until Maggie makes an aeroplane noise. Maggie that is letting their daughter take a sip of her _cafe hafuch_  and suppressing a smile, when the milk froth leaves their daughter with a foamy white moustache.  

The realisation is more than a little unsettling and Sydney thinks it must show on her face, because Amira is looking at her with her head all titled in curiousity even while Zara squirms about on her lap. 

"Sydney Katz, what are you thinking about?" The way Amira says it is playful and relief spreads across Sydney's face.

"Nothing at all, Amira - nothing at all,"

Amira looks at her like she doesn't believe her one bit and Sydney finds herself reassuring Amira again, almost too quickly.

"Really it's nothing - I was just thinking about something from work the other day".

The white lies fall out of Sydney's mouth one after another and it all feels so terribly  _unmensch_ of her to be feeding lies like this to Amira, but Sydney can't help it, because telling these white lies are easier than telling Amira that she has just come to the inconvenient and disquietening realisation that she is still in love with Maggie. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, apologies to anyone still reading this story for the large delay between the last chapter and this chapter... my time honestly got soaked up a lot by university and another fic for the Tunnel, which I've since completed (If you haven't already watched the Tunnel, I would highly recommend watching both seasons 1 and 2. If you enjoyed Sydney and Maggie's story, I think that it will be definitely easy for you to fall in love with the Elise/Eryka storyline in the Tunnel). I actually had a lot of the elements of this chapter completed a while ago (with bits and pieces added in during the university semester between readings and exams when the inspiration struck), but it's only now that I've got winter break that I've had the time to get this chapter in the shape I wanted it in.  
> Finally, the next chapter after this one will be the last and will obviously feature a lot more Maggie than previous chapters, as Sydney finally makes her way back to Toronto. Hope this chapter reads well and that you all enjoy it!

Sydney tries to ignore it at first - she really does. Because she did not move 9,263km to another country across two seas and an ocean for nothing. Because Amira is kind, beautiful, intelligent and everything Sydney could ever want in a girlfriend and she, at the very least, deserves Sydney to take a chance on her. And as much as Sydney is adamant that this is not a reason: because Maggie has probably moved on in the three months since Sydney left her and maybe, it's time that Sydney just let her go.

So for the first few weeks, Sydney buries herself in more work at Ichilov Hospital than she can handle, goes out to more restaurants and bars than she can count and plans a thousand different romantic gestures for Amira all in an attempt to forget the fact that she is still heart wrenchingly, head-over-heels, I’d-like-you-to-be-the-mother-of-my-children in love with Maggie. And it sort of works - the emptiness in her chest subsides for a while and Sydney finds herself not thinking about Maggie so often in the dying hours of the day. 

But then it happens six weeks later on a Friday night, as Sydney and Amira are in the kitchen of their shared apartment preparing a pot of _cholent_ for dinner and Amira makes an off-hand remark about how Sydney hasn't really been taking care of herself these past few weeks. It's trivial, a throwaway comment, and Sydney knows Amira is onlysaying it because she cares about her and her well-being, but they somehow stumble into a stupid argument about how Sydney's been overworking herself too much at the hospital  and before Sydney knows it, Amira is angrily yelling out:  

"I may be a lot of things Sydney Katz, but if there's one thing I'm not - it's oblivious,"

Sydney stops - she stops in the middle of stirring the pot of _cholent_ to rub her hands on a tea towel and to lean back against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her chest. "What's that even supposed to mean, Amira?".

Amira looks away. "Forget it - forget I said anything."

"Say it, Amira. You might as well go ahead and say it," Sydney says, throwing her hands up in the air. 

"Do you think that I don't notice, Sydney? The way you always overcompensate and over-engage like you're trying to constantly make something up to me. Oh, I notice. I notice that whenever you smile around me, it doesn't ever quite reach your eyes. That whenever we talk, you're always thinking about something or someone else -", Amira pauses and Sydney watches the way her voice softens just before she finishes the rest of her thoughts, "I notice that whenever I tell you that I love you, there's always a second of hesitation, before you can repeat those three words back to me".

 

"Amira, I -"

Sydney shakes her head and takes a step into Amira's space, feeling the need to hold both Amira's hands in her own, but Amira recoils before Sydney even touches her. Amira looks impossibly small now standing there on the other side of the kitchen, light years away, and Sydney can't help but think that maybe she never knew Amira as well as she thought she did and how maybe, after all this time Amira knew her better than Sydney ever thought she did. 

"You're here Sydney, I know that - but you're never really here with me."

All the anger in Amira's eyes has dissipated and been replaced with tears, and Sydney doesn't know what to say. Because there are no words in the world that can fix this. This isn't some patient she can perform a routine surgery on or just stitch up with sutures. This is a patient, whose cancer has spread from their lungs into their blood, bones and brain. This is the patient, who is coding in the emergency room and who Sydney knows she won't be able to save, no matter how long she spends resuscitating them and cracking each and every one of their ribs in the process.

This is the part, where all Sydney can do is helplessly look on and quietly pray that it doesn't hurt as much as she thinks it does.

Amira lets out a heavy exhale and then there's this immutable sadness in her eyes that Sydney doesn't think she will ever be able to forget. "That's not actually even the worst thing about all this," Amira lets out a mirthless laugh amongst all the tears, before wiping haphazardly at her cheeks with the palm of her hand.

"It's the fact that I'm still so in love with you - and I can't help it, no matter how much I know you're not in love with me."

Amira looks at Sydney; looks at her for a long time like she's giving Sydney a final chance to rebut everything she's just said. And Sydney wills, she wills herself over and over again to say something - anything - but she doesn't say anything. She just sits there and listens to the deafening sound of her heart violently convulsing in the hollow of her chest, watching Amira make her way from the kitchen to the bathroom in a rush. Sydney follows, but the bathroom door is shut and locked before Sydney can even reach her and Sydney bangs on the door, begging for Amira to open it.

"Amira, please - "

The rest of Sydney's words get swallowed up by the sound of Amira's body slumping against the door and the clenched sobs that follow.

Sydney apologises into the door over and over again, while the _cholent_ on the stovetop burns and burns.

 

* * *

It doesn't take long for them to break up after that and Sydney finds herself standing in the middle of their apartment on a Sunday morning two weeks later with two packed suitcases sitting in the hallway and the sound of her taxi to Ben Gurion airport blasting its horn a few storeys below. They haven't really spoken since the break-up, so there's a letter on the dining table that Sydney has spent late hours in the night on in the hopes that it will offer Amira the explanation she, at the very least, deserves.

The taxi sounds its horn again and Sydney takes one last look at what was once the apartment she shared with Amira. There's nothing really left for her here in Tel Aviv, just fragments of a facade she spent so long constructing only to realise that she should have never built it in the first place, because now that it's shattered there's all this collateral damage she never intended for. Sydney lets out a quiet exhale and opens the front door to roll her suitcases outside.

 

 

 

"Sydney, wait."

Amira emerges from the bedroom with something in her hand and walks over to stand before Sydney in all of her crinkled pyjama glory, bathed in the golden morning light. She looks ethereal, even at this unearthly hour, and Sydney can't help but think that maybe in some other life, where she wasn't so in love with Maggie, she honestly could have fallen for Amira.

"You forgot this," Amira stuffs a scrub cap into Sydney's hand, before taking a step back to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "It was at the bottom of your bedside table drawer. I found it doing the laundry the other day".

"I thought about throwing it out at first, because I was so angry at you, but I - I couldn't bring myself to do it, because as much as I want to hate you - I don't."

Sydney doesn't know what to make of it, the fact that Amira has decided to keep the exact same scrub cap that Sydney refused to leave behind in Toronto all those months ago because it carried remnants of Maggie in its seams; whether it is a blessing or a curse. So, she decides to take it instead as a sign from the universe.

"I, uh - thank you," Sydney tucks the scrub cap into the pocket of her jacket, at a loss for words.

"Amira, I - I want to apologise for everything. You should - you should know that I was never involved with anyone else while we were together, but you were right, there was someone else - from my past back in Toronto and I only realised, after I arrived here, that I hadn't completely let go of her and that - I still can't seem to let go of her. I never intended or wanted for you to get hurt. I just thought I was ready to pack up and leave everything in Toronto behind and to move on and be in love with you in Tel Aviv. But, I - I wasn't ready and it was unfair of me to bring you into my life like that". 

There's no surprise in Amira's expression, when Sydney finishes and Sydney deduces from the way Amira is looking at her and nodding her head slowly that: 

"You knew."

"I knew that there was never anybody else. You're not that type of person, Sydney. But, something shifted in you after that day we were in the cafe in Floretin and you - you just weren't the same anymore. It was like you were missing a part of yourself," Amira confesses.

There's a beat of silence, before Amira takes a step closer to Sydney to embrace her and to whisper an altogether quieter confession into Sydney's ear.

"I wish I knew how to fall out of love with you,"

Sydney feels Amira's tears wet her cheeks. "I wish that I could have fallen in love with you."

Amira pulls away from Sydney's hold. "But, you didn't. And I can't change that, no matter how hard I try to keep you here."

Sydney nods slowly.

"She's a lucky woman, whoever she is." 

"She said the same thing to me once - only about you - just before I left for Tel Aviv. The truth is, though, I was the one that was lucky to have you and you deserve someone, Amira - someone who can love you in the way I never could."

The taxi sounds its horn again in a long, continuous stretch and then, both Sydney and Amira know that it's time to say goodbye. 

" _Zay gezunt_ , Sydney."

 _Zay gezunt_ , Amira.

 

It's only later, when Sydney is sitting in the taxi, watching their apartment building grow smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror that Sydney realises that Amira's heart is the first heart she has ever knowingly broken. She promises herself all the way to the airport to never do it again.

 


End file.
